The Indian Foreign Service: Worthy of an Emerging Power?

The IFS has long been the elite. As India’s global reach grows, it now faces serious challenges.

By Sudha Ramachandran for The Diplomat

July 12, 2013

India’s global ambitions have grown remarkably over the past decade. However, questions are being raised about the capacity of its diplomatic corps to act as an effective catalyst in India’s transformation to a global power. Analysts are asking whether the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) has the numerical strength to project India’s influence in a manner befitting an emerging power. Do its officers have the expertise to engage in the kind of complex diplomacy that is required of a global power? Are IFS officers too preoccupied with putting out fires to spare time for crafting a grand strategy based on a long-term vision?

Several of the criticisms being hurled at the IFS are not new. The service has grappled with short staffing, for instance, for decades. Only now, given India’s growing global stature, have these problems acquired a new significance and resonance.

Part of the Ministry of External Affairs, the IFS is the permanent bureaucracy comprising of career diplomats. It works with several other bodies such as the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the National Security Council (NSC) and so on in the formulation and implementation of India’s foreign policy.

According to an official source in the Ministry of External Affairs, India’s diplomatic corps consists of around 1,750 officers, which includes roughly 750 IFS Grade-A officers, 250 IFS Grade-B personnel, military attachés, and other officers.

The IFS’ numerical strength is small not only in the context of India’s geographic size and its 1.1-billion population, but also in comparison to the diplomatic corps of its counterparts in other countries. “India is served by the smallest diplomatic corps of any major country, not just far smaller than the big powers but by comparison with most of the larger emerging countries,” wrote Shashi Tharoor, a former junior minister in the MEA (2009-10) and former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, in his bookPax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century (Penguin, 2012).

Indeed, the IFS is miniscule compared with its U.S. counterpart, and is also far smaller than the foreign services of countries like China and Brazil.

The IFS’s short-staffing was identified as a weakness of the Indian foreign policy establishment in a report prepared by N R Pillai as far back as 1965. This shortage of personnel is being acutely felt now with India’s growing global footprint. As the country’s interests and influence extend into more continents, it needs more diplomatic representation. For instance, Africa and Latin America are emerging rapidly on India’s radar and while India has increased the number of missions on those continents, they are inadequate.

The inadequate number of personnel in the IFS has also expanded the workload of India’s diplomats. More importantly, as the Naresh Chandra Task Force Report of 2012 pointed out, the IFS doesn't have enough diplomats to “anticipate, analyze and act on contemporary challenges.” In other words, the IFS is inadequately equipped to act proactively in response to global challenges.

Recruitment to the IFS is through competitive examinations held annually. More than 400,000 aspirants take the preliminary exams. Those who qualify go on to take another round of exams and then an interview. At the end of it all roughly a thousand are recruited into the IFS, the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), the Indian Police Service (IPS), the Indian Revenue Service (IRS), and other agencies.

According to Tharoor, the former MEA official, 30-35 people are recruited annually into the IFS, up from around 12 about 30 years ago. In other words, just 0.01% of those who sit the exam make it to the IFS.

The competitive exam that is used to recruit India’s diplomats also selects its domestic bureaucrats, its police and its customs and tax officials. Thus, those who join the IFS are not necessarily people with the skills or aptitude for a career in diplomacy.